Conservative though she may be, I felt that Palin represented an explosion of a brand new style of muscular American feminism. At her startling debut on that day, she was combining male and female qualities in ways that I have never seen before...

As a dissident feminist, I have been arguing since my arrival on the scene nearly 20 years ago that young American women aspiring to political power should be studying military history rather than taking women's studies courses, with their rote agenda of never-ending grievances....

I am still waiting for substantive evidence that Sarah Palin is a dangerous extremist. I am perfectly willing to be convinced, but right now, she seems to be merely an optimistic pragmatist like Ronald Reagan, someone who pays lip service to religious piety without being in the least wedded to it. I don't see her arrival as portending the end of civil liberties or life as we know it....

A feminism that cannot admire the bravura under high pressure of the first woman governor of a frontier state isn't worth a warm bucket of spit....

Now that's the Sarah Palin brand of can-do, no-excuses, moose-hunting feminism -- a world away from the whining, sniping, wearily ironic mode of the establishment feminism represented by Gloria Steinem, a Hillary Clinton supporter whose shameless Democratic partisanship over the past four decades has severely limited American feminism and not allowed it to become the big tent it can and should be. Sarah Palin, if her reputation survives the punishing next two months, may be breaking down those barriers. Feminism, which should be about equal rights and equal opportunity, should not be a closed club requiring an ideological litmus test for membership.

Exactly. This is the way I feel too. I may not agree with a lot of things Palin stands for, but I celebrate this advance in feminism.

This is great for women, and it's especially great that it is happening from the conservative side, because feminism is already well-entrenched among liberals. Let feminism spread amongst conservatives, in this new version that is purged of all the off-putting trappings of liberal attitudes and issues.

I thought it was a terrific article, apart from her continuing fixation with Madonna. Paglia calls the response to Palin's nomination as "a tacky low in American politics," a "gigantic, instantaneous coast-to-coast rage" of "witch-trial hysteria," an "hallucinatory hurricane" that poured forth into the well of public discourse a poisonous, "grotesquely lurid series of allegations, fantasies, half-truths and outright lies about Palin" that have (as I predicted in a comment yesterday) alienated by crying wolf even Paglia (she doesn't "believe much of what I read or hear about Palin in the media" anymore). Paglia is "still waiting for substantive evidence that Sarah Palin is a dangerous extremist" and finds her kind of feminism "a world away from the whining, sniping, wearily ironic mode of the establishment feminism." Paglia says that "Feminism, which should be about equal rights and equal opportunity, should not be a closed club requiring an ideological litmus test for membership" and brands it "foolish to expect that feminism must for all time be inextricably wed to the pro-choice agenda." And she says that "[a] feminism that cannot admire the bravura under high pressure of the first woman governor of a frontier state isn't worth a warm bucket of spit." I fancy her editors feel this morning much like these radio hosts - "hey! That's not the script you're supposed to follow!"

Rev, I give her credit for consciously living in Philadelphia, and not NYC (as she herself said in this article) and other high-powered places.

If you've ever been there, those are not people with airs and graces that one would expect from a venerable old city like Philly.

They're tough, mean even, and rude.

But I too would prefer to live in Philly than NYC, because the sort of things one has to put up with in New York (the unalloyed pressures to succeed, and competitive stupidities of being in the "in" crowd) takes the American ethos of keeping up with the Joneses, and twists it.

I'd posit the advance-by-merit, self-deterministic, small government wing of conservatives needs little convincing, or basic alteration of their existing ideology.

Among the social cons, which are not necessarily separate from the self-deterministic cons, but not exactly the same either - I don't know that they see this as feminism per se, but as natural women's role: of course women are strong, and of course they carry on with or without the male, and of course they do that while holding family high in their lives. Part of what excites social cons in the Palin phenomenon is the debunking of women as meek and subservient within conservative circles. That's just a liberal construct intended to demean social con values.

Maybe the perception of what constitutes feminism is changing, but little adjustment to conservatism is necessary.

Of course, that doesn't mean there aren't misogynists and ill-thought out positions among conservatives – there are, as there are among any political body.

Paglia is so smart, even when she is wrong she is brilliant. But she is spot on here.

I concur with her acknowledgment of that Reagan ease in the skin that Palin has. But the real secret, is that Palin dropped the victim stance that so characterizes and satirizes the drek that passes for gender feminism. She is a "can do" feminist, which is how most of the old line started out before they became addicted to blame and allergic to personal responsibility.

Agentic people scare the shit out of victims. We should. We actually do stuff and get things accomplished.

I agree, Ann. In my view, feminism is a broad philosophy, like democracy, like the idea of self-government, and within that philosophy, we inevitably have clashing over specific forms. Just as Americans are united under our founding principles, we form different parties and have different places along a political spectrum to hash out policies and laws. Conservative feminism will differ from liberal feminism just conservative Americanism differs from liberal Americanism. I applaud Palin -- but I am not voting for McCain. And I see a need for liberal feminists to challenge liberal sexism now, and after this election is long over.

Well it is good that McCain has finally advanced the GOP up to the point where the Democrats were 24 years ago.

That said, my biggest problem with Palin (aside from the obvious fact that I'm a liberal and don't agree with her position on issues)is the whole 'troopergate' thing.

If I used my official position (such as it is) to try and get someone fired because I had a personal dispute with them outside of work, then I'd be suspended from my own job and probably terminated. This kind of conduct in office is both unprofessional and unacceptable for a President of the United States. That's not a gender issue, it's a professional issue.

Rev and Original Mike -- read the whole essay. Paglia actually writes quite a bit about the Western states and frontier feminism.

That part of the essay reminded me of my grandmother, a woman who grew up in rural Utah, was valedictorian of her high school, married, raised three children, worked as a marriage counseler and presided over a large clan of beloved grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and many others.

One of us once gave her a book on pioneer women. I don't believe it was a bad book, but it definitely stressed the limited opportunities available to women of her era.

The result is that a politician who conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan calls a "Christianist" - seeking to politicise Christianity the way Islamists politicise Islam - could soon be a heartbeat away from the presidency. Remember, this is a woman who once addressed a church congregation, saying of her work as governor - transport, policing and education - "really all of that stuff doesn't do any good if the people of Alaska's heart isn't right with God".

Until now, anti-Americanism has been exaggerated and much misunderstood: outside a leftist hardcore, it has mostly been anti-Bushism, opposition to this specific administration. But if McCain wins in November, that might well change. Suddenly Europeans and others will conclude that their dispute is with not only one ruling clique, but Americans themselves. For it will have been the American people, not the politicians, who will have passed up a once-in-a-generation chance for a fresh start - a fresh start the world is yearning for.

And the manner of that decision will matter, too. If it is deemed to have been about race - that Obama was rejected because of his colour - the world's verdict will be harsh. In that circumstance, Slate's Jacob Weisberg wrote recently, international opinion would conclude that "the United States had its day, but in the end couldn't put its own self-interest ahead of its crazy irrationality over race".

On his Messiah, who will redeem Freedland's guilty soul, the Guardian man writes:

For Obama has stirred an excitement around the globe unmatched by any American politician in living memory. Polling in Germany, France, Britain and Russia shows that Obama would win by whopping majorities, with the pattern repeated in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. If November 4 were a global ballot, Obama would win it handsomely. If the free world could choose its leader, it would be Barack Obama.

Palin's comments that feminist criticisms of attacks on Hillary were "whining" and that women need to suck it up and prove themselves that much more were disheartening. If she's a feminist, it's accidental.

Consider her widely acclaimed lipstick on a pitbull comment. What I don't understand is how feminists haven't pointed out that Palin's comment was sexist. Her hockey mom comment implies that whenever a woman is aggressive she is like an animal; such behavior is unusual for her because she is supposed to be demure and effeminate.

To understand this, contrast the points. The joke wouldn't be funny if it went like this: "You know the difference between a hockey dad and a pitbull. A tie." Why? Because it is okay for men to be aggressive. When women do it, it's cute, even humorous. If we want to explore the sexism, we should look at Palin's comment (i.e., the one written by here male speech writer).

"I'd posit the advance-by-merit, self-deterministic, small government wing of conservatives needs little convincing, or basic alteration of their existing ideology."

Excellent point John. Conservatives are about nothing if not results. Who brings the results is immaterial.

And I tend to hope that all us conservatives are advance-by-merit, self-deterministic, small government types. People like Huckabee and his followers are not conservatives because they are big government types with a different type of social agenda.

That is why Bush is not a conservative. He believes in big government. That one gets you kicked out of the club and you even have to turn in your membership card and decoder ring as far as I am concerned.

it is good that McCain has finally advanced the GOP up to the point where the Democrats were 24 years ago.

Now, we have to wait for the Democrats to catch up to the point where they were 24 years ago.

And your issue with troopergate isn't at all affected by the fact that the 'trooper' was clearly violating his own job standards. That you have a personal dispute with someone is not a reason to overlook performance failings.

Eli- it was not a private matter IF she was attempting to have a trooper fired- whether I am personally involved in the instance or not I don't want a state trooper in my state wearing the badge who has issued death threats and tased a child.

On Palin's feminisism- she is a classic conservative feminist- No special rules based on her sex and judged soley on her results and competence. This may be new terratory to radical feminists, but conservative women have been living this way for quite a while.

Then this might interest you. Like every other Palin myth, "troopergate" is insubstantial.

As usual Simon, your analysis is simplistic and completely wrong. Just because someone is governor, or president, it does not give them the right to arbitrarily fire anyone in government service. Generally civil servants are protected by personnel actions by politicians to prevent abuse of power.

You, for all your posturing, apparently don't have the slightest clue about how government works.

And btw Simon, I love your seeming comfort with the idea that town librarians should be subject to loyalty tests to elected officials. That is just precious. You seem to pine for an age when all jobs in government were patronage jobs and handed out based on who you knew.

I would agree, Eli - and I am a McCain supporter. Frankly, when I first heard about "Troopergate", I felt she would be disqualified, certainly in my eyes.

But - and I have read as much on "Troopergate" as anyone - I now believe that it is a political game being played by people she had already pissed off, and nothing more. Of course, the report will imply that she done him wrong, but really, it won't - because it can't - show a clear and compelling violation of her office.

So, I've moved on.

I do believe though, that right now there is such a huge volume of charges and counter-charges being thrown at Sarah Palin that the country is - at least until her interview tomorrow night on ABC - in a state of election-suspended-animation due to Palin/anti-Plain fatigue.

Just because someone is governor, or president, it does not give them the right to arbitrarily fire anyone in government service. Generally civil servants are protected by personnel actions by politicians to prevent abuse of power.

Then I guess Palin can't have fired anybody arbitrarily. So that's settled, then.

Actually, the person who was fired was not the trooper: he still, to this day, has his job. The person who was "fired" was the Public Safety Commissioner who..

...now listen carefully...

serves at the pleasure of the governor

Get that?

If she wanted to fire him because he parted his hair on the wrong side of her head, she was perfectly within her rights to do so. He was not a regular civil servant entitled to the full protections of his employment.

Even if you believe every possible bad thing about Palin (which have all been completely debunked, so your "concern" is obviously nothing more than either partisanship or sexism...you let us know which), she still didn't do anything wrong, unethical or illegal.

As the governor, she had the right to decide who she wanted in the position - and she decided it wasn't him. Whatever her reason, she was well within her rights to do it....

That's it, I'm off to the cosmetics counter at WalMart! Which shade of lipstick works best with crew-cut gray hair ( not thinning ) and a world-class 54 years of working outside seven days a week red neck? The folks with whom I work will laugh their asses off tomorrow, I promise.

For the benefit of you indoor drones, outside people laugh frequently, at each other and themselves.

Holy Community Organizer, Batman, I think this lipstick shit will sweep the country. I see Republican candidates across this great land pulling out the small mirror and the lipstick case before every speech. Oh shit, I'm willing to bet we see it in the US House of Rep when they get back in town.

What amazes me is that anyone could think that Palin's version of feminism is new. There was a good reason that the first state to grant suffrage was Wyoming, and that the trend moved from the west to the east (though I had female ancestors in Ohio in the 1840s agitating for it, along with emancipation and temperance - and who helped found the Republican party a couple years later).

On the frontier, the sex roles were not nearly as well established as back in the civilized East, and in particular in the South. The women fought along side their men to build civilization out in the wilderness.

Just because someone is governor, or president, it does not give them the right to arbitrarily fire anyone in government service. Generally civil servants are protected by personnel actions by politicians to prevent abuse of power.

This has been answered, but just to reiterate, the person fired was not covered by civil service rules, but rather served at the whim of the governor. This was the equivalent of the president firing one of his Cabinet, and not of firing some GS-12 working in one of their departments. The GS-12 is covered by civil service rules, but the cabinet member is not. He or she can be fired for any reason whatsoever, as could the guy fired by Palin.

Of course, most often cabinet members, and other appointed officials of an elected government here, are given the fig leaf of allowing them to resign. But that is just cover. Do you really think that Donald Rumsfeld actually wanted to leave his post as Secretary of Defense? Rather, I would suggest that it was more likely that President Bush suggested to him that new blood was needed there and that he was willing to accept Rumsfeld's resignation.

What Palin may not have done was to offer the guy this fig leaf of allowing him to submit his resignation.

To clear up questions about her conduct. That investigation completed a month ago.

And why is she now refusing to cooperate after stating publicly she would?

Her lawyer advised her not to. The Democrat in charge of the investigation is already crowing about how his report will be an "October surprise", after all, so any pretense that he isn't out to nail Palin has been abandoned.

And why did McCain send a team of lawyers to Alaska to get is quashed?

They sent a team of lawyers to deal with the team of lawyers Obama sent to Alaska.

garage mahal said... "Then why did she open up an investigation on herself?"

As I understand it, there were allegations of misconduct, and it would be in keeping with her having ran on a platform of ethics reform and open government to make such a move. Are you really suggesting that opening an investigation on herself amounts to an admission of wrongdoing? that seems a deeply counterintuitive position to take.

"And why is she now refusing to cooperate after stating publicly she would?"

Because I suspect it has turned into a "get Palin" effort. These independent investigations are, in my own view, always a calamity - that goes for the (unconstitutional) independent counsel investigation into the Clintons, too, an indelible black mark on Dean Starr's record. In any event, as we know, key members of the commission are Obama supporters and she is now more their enemy than ever. Obama supporters are doing everything they can think of to bring her down, and they may well feel that this is their best shot.

bruce hayden said: What amazes me is that anyone could think that Palin's version of feminism is new.

I sense that too. A certain large fraction of Americans never moved west, having arrived early on the eastern seaboard or arrived later and succeeded through honest hard work, they don’t have Sarah Palins in their heritage. Also, few people moved back (west to east) without carrying a little diary of screed with them.I’m interested in how Sarah Palin plays in California. She could significantly narrow the gap here like no other factor before. Conservative talk radio (KFI) is not on board, but I also sense, they are out of touch. The state government is messed up beyond comprehension. What will Schwartzenegger say and do about Palin? (I’m so thankful he didn’t anglicize his name)

Look, You can put lipstick on RHHarding's dobie, but the dobie will still bite you in the ass as soon as you turn your back. You can even put lipstick on RHHarding himself and still he's going to complain about not having equal rights to nag you about scything your crabgrass until you're in a state of blue in the face.

And don't even get me started on Trooper Yorkgate.

In other words, what's time to a pig in a pantsuit? Especially if it's a male pig. Wearing shorts. And no underpants.

If the Messiah could heal the lame then all his followers would be well. And intelligent. Haven't seen that happen yet. They are all still lame. But I hear he can apply lipstick like the metrosexual he obviously is.

Palin reminds me of GK Chesterton when he argued that "we shall have to remember that all the beauty of a fairy-tale lies in this", and he goes on to describe the prince "...being at once humble enough to wonder, and haughty enough to defy."I see that. He adds:

"Man must have just enough faith in himself to have adventures, and just enough doubt of himself to enjoy them."

While I recognize this is merely a vague desire projected onto a woman-who-would-lead, it is what humans look for among the few who try to take the ring. It's a complex and precarious mix of qualities. Obama, in contrast, seems all haughtiness and pride.

SimonIf she has nothing to hide why stonewall? And if Monegan serves at the pleasure of the governor, and she ran on a platform of ethics reform and open government she would be forthright in cooperating in honoring that pledge. As I understand it's not an independent investigation, and in fact, by opening the investigation herself she had hoped to appoint 3 handpicked investigators of her choosing. To top it off she replaced Monegan with a known sexual harrasser she paid off with a $10,000 severance. Oy.

Why are leftists so mystified by a strong conservative woman. She's got bigger balls than most leftist men. She's independent and can make her own decisions. This is something that attracts conservatives everywhere and by that I mean mainly conservative men. They know leadership when they see it. When a leftist sees leadership they shrill and shriek that is a right-wing conspiracy.

Seriously, I agree. I really respect Paglia's intellectual independence and I always look forward to her columns. However, I always feel like I have to put up with her constant self-promotion ("as I wrote in my 1994 book X...") the same way I do with advertisements during a football game. It's just the "price" you have to pay for the experience.

Christopher Althouse Cohen said... "'As a dissident feminist, I have been arguing since my arrival on the scene nearly 20 years ago...' Why does she have to begin every thought with a statement like this?"

Perhaps Andrew Sullivan should adopt it. "As a dissident conservative, I have been arguing since I ceased to be a conservative in any meaningful sense nearly twenty years ago..."

Freder Frederson said... And btw Simon, I love your seeming comfort with the idea that town librarians should be subject to loyalty tests to elected officials. That is just precious. You seem to pine for an age when all jobs in government were patronage jobs and handed out based on who you knew.

I love your clap dripping hypocrisy. Obama is the product of the Chicago Democratic patronage system. He would be nowhere had it not been for patronage. Obama was chosen to run for the state legislature by one of Chicago’s patronage royalty, Emil Jones. Obama was chosen to run for the US Senate by the Chicago Democratic Machine. He was backed by the patronage system, endorsed by the patronage system, is a product of the patronage system, and is part and parcel of that system.

Freder, you seem to pine for an age when all jobs in government were patronage and handed out based on who you knew. That age is still alive in Chicago you should move here. I am sure the Messiah can hook you up.

Now that the conventions are over, it is evident that the battle of John McCain is over (McCain won) and the battle of Barack Obama will determine the outcome of the election. Now that McCain has definitively, and I suspect irreversibly, separated himself from George Bush, he has become an acceptable alternative to Obama for voters seeking change. The question now is whether Obama's extra quotient of change -- or the different direction that change will take -- is worth the risk of electing him.

Obama was wrong to invest so much in the Bush-McCain linkage. Any candidate can define himself at his convention. And if McCain chose, as he did, to use the gathering to distance himself from Washington and from the Bush administration, there was really nothing that Obama could do to stop him. He should have focused very specifically on McCain himself and taken shots at specific votes and bills that he introduced. Now, after the massive exposure McCain got at his convention and the demonstrable commitment to change embodied in the selection of Sarah Palin, it is too late.

The Obama campaign doesn't seem to get that it is running against McCain, not Sarah Palin. It spent the entire Republican convention and the week since attacking the vice presidential candidate. That's like stabbing the capillaries not the arteries. Nobody is going to vote for or against McCain because they want Sarah Palin to be vice president of the United States, or don't. But Palin has served, and will serve, a key purpose in illustrating and demonstrating what kind of a man John McCain is. She stands as a tribute to his desire to bring change, his willingness to cut loose from the past and his courage in attempting innovation. No amount of criticism of Palin is going to stop that process. Obama needs to remember who his opponent is.

So by all means, continue targetting Palin. Let's see how far that gets Democrats.

garage mahal said... "If you have evidence Obama or any Democrats sent a single person to Alaska, let's have it."

It's true that the Democrats have denied it - both Politico and CBS news have reported the denials. Nevertheless, even the Obama droids concede that an army of "professional journalists" have done so, and since 8/29, the media have made themselves unpaid assistants to the Obama campaign. It isn't that the McCain campaign has "sought to conflate" them, as Jonathan Martin puts it, it's that the media's output has erased any functional difference between the media and the media division of the Obama campaign. And frankly, I don't believe the claim that the Democrats haven't sent anyone - the only reason they wouldn't is if they're sure that the media will do their dity work for them, and they must surely worry that professional ethics will kick back in for at least some journalists at some point.

I may not agree with a lot of things Palin stands for, but I celebrate this advance in feminism.

This is great for women, and it's especially great that it is happening from the conservative side, because feminism is already well-entrenched among liberals. Let feminism spread amongst conservatives, in this new version that is purged of all the off-putting trappings of liberal attitudes and issues.

I agree However, this idea that Sarah Palin is something new really kind of funny. Maybe it is being in a non-urban area or having a professional working mother in the 50's when that wasn't common, but Sarah Palin's "brand" of feminism is nothing new at all.

This is exactly how women in my reality act. They have families, careers, religion sometimes, are the equals of their partners, hunt, fish, drive motorcycles, cook, sew and never consider themselves to be second class or second rate to anyone. They do it without whining and demanding special consideration or favors. They get on with getting on and making a life and a living and nurturing the next generation.

Then why did she open up an investigation on herself? And why is she now refusing to cooperate after stating publicly she would?

If you read news reports instead of lunatic fringe blogs you would learn that the so called investigation is being led by, managed by, and investigated by friends and acquaintances of Monegen, the trooper chief. That is called a conflict of interest. That is called an abuse of power. That is called, in some, jurisdictions a crime and in others pure unethical behavior. Something I see you condone.

BTW, is it true that the missing Joe Biden tried to make a lame man walk at a rally in Missouri?

I personally pine for a return to the patronage age. I personally would appreciate something getting-the-fuck- done in our Federal swamp. Civil servants have completely forgotten for whom they work. It would be great if government employees were all replaced every election, too.

Does anyone have a governmental bureaucratic story with a happy ending? It would be great if those fuckers could be canned just because.

FWIW, the last time I checked my W-2, they were costing me 200 dollars a day.

Yes, the Redeemer is a uniter. He brings together liberal English Jews like Jonathan Freedland who think all criticism of Israel stems from genocidal antisemitism and Louis Farrakhan who thinks Obama is the savior of America and the world.

Christopher Althouse Cohen said... "As a dissident feminist, I have been arguing since my arrival on the scene nearly 20 years ago..."

Why does she have to begin every thought with a statement like this?

Some years back Paglia wrote an article that angered the mainstream feminists. If I remember correctly, she advocated them getting off their high horse of victimization. Since then she has been considered or considers herself the anti- feminist feminist.

Well it is good that McCain has finally advanced the GOP up to the point where the Democrats were 24 years ago.

Let's get real here. In 1984 the Dems had no chance. None. The only question was whether Reagan was going to run the table. Realizing that the Dems trotted out Carter's old VP and ran him to be the loser in this race mainly so they could finally get rid of him, and put him out to pasture. In that scenario, knowing they were going to lose, they then put woman on the bottom of the ticket as a gimmick, knowing there was no serious chance whatsoever for her to win it and to actually ever hold the office.

When have the Dems run a woman when they knew the election would be competitive? When else have the Dems put a woman on the ticket at all? Meanwhile, it took McCain to put one on the ticket with the possibility and full intention of winning.

It was reported (and hey isn't that usually good enough for the rumor mongers? It was when Palin was the target...) that the Democratic "hit squad" arrived within 24 hours of the announcement.

It's actually not true that they denied it. The official response said:

"Not a single person from DC or Chicago has traveled to Alaska to do research,"

Notice the parsing: they never said that people from New York, Los Angeles or other any locale weren't sent.

He said that zero people were sent - but only specified "from DC or Chicago." From the same people that brought us the provisional meaning of the word "is," this is non-denial denial at its best.

Here's the bottom line: if Obama's campaign didn't send anybody, they'd be guilty of gross incompetence. Of course you want to find out everything you can about your opponent, and when time is short you send your best opposition researchers to do the job.

Do you deniers really want to be in the position of arguing that Obama is that stupid?

He is also a big Obama supporter, so I'm absolutely sure he's going to be 100% fair because we all know that he and his supporters would never try playing below-the-belt politics with Sarah Palin, right?

just to clarify my comment above, I realize that simon isn't one of the deniers, but my ending question may have seemed like I did...That question was directed at those to whom simon was originally responding...

When have the Dems run a woman when they knew the election would be competitive? When else have the Dems put a woman on the ticket at all? Meanwhile, it took McCain to put one on the ticket with the possibility and full intention of winning.

Goodness, for once in my life, I find myself agreeing with Camille Paglia. This does NOT happen often. I tend to be so annoyed by her reflexive self-promotion, also noted by several other commenters, that I usually can't stand to read her work. This time, however, I'm standing up and clapping.

Before I finished all of Paglia's essay, I wrote most of a comment here speculating as to whether her ability to recognize Palin's "frontier feminism" when most urban liberals can't see it might have originated while she was growing up here in Central New York, where I live. Responding to Revenant's comment that she ought to get out more, I suggested that in fact, she already had, and that's why she knows what she's seeing. Fortunately, before I made a complete fool out of myself by posting that comment, I went back to the essay and read the rest of it. Lo and behold, it ends with several paragraphs about the farm women Paglia knew during her childhood in Oxford (right down the road!)

Rev and Paglia are both right that women with Palin's tough self-reliance have been here, and in places like this around the country, all along. But such women haven't made it onto the national stage, and they certainly haven't been admitted into the firmament of liberal-anointed feminists. It remains to be seen what Palin will do with her new-found fame. Meanwhile, though, I have a message for Camille Paglia. Those farm women you used to know? They're still here, they're still catching calves, and when they get a moment to catch their breaths, BOY, are they excited about Sarah Palin.

Jim, I have to say that I don't blame Obama's staff if they are descending on Alaska to find the dirt. Heck, part of the reason I'm so certain they are is that it would be professional malpractice if they didn't! Imagine they lose in the fall, and it comes out afterward that there was a scandal lurking in open view, just waiting for an Obamabot to discover and weaponize it. They'd never get work in politics again! Hell, if they lose this thing, Obama's senior staff have to know that their careers are over. They blew an unlosable election! So the idea that they aren't doing everything possible to destroy the threat, I just find that terribly difficult to believe.

Sure feminism is great, but will the Republican "Reform/Change you really can believe in" ticket will have the guts to investigate the Bush administration for war crimes?

Neither the Republican nor the Democratic ticket will have the "guts" to do something that idiotic. Nobody wants to criminalize policy differences, and if the Democrats honestly believed Bush was guilty of criminal behavior they'd have passed articles of impeachment by now.

"Let feminism spread amongst conservatives, in this new version that is purged of all the off-putting trappings of liberal attitudes and issues."

Palin's version of feminism is already well spread and well sunk in amongst conservatives. It's not really her version of feminism so much as it is the conservative version of feminism which is already in well and deeply in place. It will significantly spread amongst liberals who formerly only knew the Democratic Party version of feminism.

Last fall when I dropped 2 elk in 20 seconds (needed to feed a friend, and this area granted 2 licenses) I was very glad to be accompanied by a feminist of the old-west variety, who asked for a second knife and went to work on the second elk while I dressed the first. She is also an oft-published neurobiologist, but I'm sure that detail would be lost on bold, modern, coastalfems.

- Democrats are in a total meltdown. We've gone from practically recreating the Paul Wellstone Memorial disaster in the way the media reacted to Palin's pick as VP, and now we're rapidly moving towards a Howard Dean "YEA" moment from the Obama team.

- This is sick! I was thinking about voting for Obama but all of this is over the top. Why the attacks? The Democrats need to stop all of this, they are acting so elitist and out of touch. It is time for change, time to change all these elitist Democrats.

Palin is a book burner and believes in intelligent design. All four of them are puppets anyway, it doesn't matter who wins. This whole political process nauseates me but I guess it's the best that we apes have ever come up with.

"I have been arguing since my arrival on the scene nearly 20 years ago that young American women aspiring to political power should be studying military history rather than taking women's studies courses,..."

A few weeks ago David Weber was GOH at our local science fiction convention.

This statement makes me think of a remark he made on a panel about feminism and strong female roles in novels. (His "Hornblower in Space" blockbuster naval saga has a female heroine.) Someone on the panel asked when the others thought that strong female heroines could more fully step out of the male hero model and still be strong.

Weber's response was essentially that in *his* mind, a good military commander needed a decidedly feminine skill set. He expanded on that a bit. He didn't see his heroine as occupying a masculine role at all.

"Let feminism spread amongst conservatives, in this new version that is purged of all the off-putting trappings of liberal attitudes and issues."

I have to agree with gcotharn, that sentence has it backwards. Let feminism finally spread amongst liberals. That they took equality, painted it with liberal trappings and then proclaimed it the only "true" version is telling that it is actually not.